Mangalore, Nov 28: “The science and management of bio-diversity is not simple with individual solutions but a complex web of issues, and we need more lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists, economists and biologists to make right policies and decisions,” said Dr K S Sugara, Assistant Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Karnataka Forest Department.
Delivering the keynote address at a trainers' training programme on'Mainstreaming conservation and sustainable use of medicinal plants diversity in Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand' in the city on Thursday, he said that the science of bio-diversity conservation had undergone changes from conservation-centred to community-centred, from logic-based to legal-based and from policy-based to practice-based.
After the Bio-diversity Act and Rules were enacted in India, thousands of Bio-diversity Management Committees (BMCs) were constituted across the country a decade ago. However, the issues of equity and justice are yet to be the focus of bio-diversity governance. This is only possible by mainstreaming conservation of bio-diversity in the developmental programmes at panchayat level, he said, raising a concern over the need to amend the Panchayat Raj Act to make bio-diversity conservation mandatory in developmental programmes.
Speaking on bio-diversity valuation and economy of the country, he said that rural poverty was ecological since the poor depended on nature for survival. “About 70 percent earnings of the poor comes from ecological sources and this is 80 percent in forested areas. Hence, ecological impoverishment should be one of the poverty indicators. Is bio-diversity an issue in the electoral agenda of panchayat? Unless this becomes an agenda in the election system, biodiversity conservation and its valuation will not get justice,” he said, stressing the need for vigorous capacity building programmes at gram panchayat level on bio-diversity issues.
He said that the trainers and members of BMCs should identify bio-resources that have potential and make efforts to enforce access and benefit sharing of bio-resources. Each bio-diversity issue requires an innovative and integrated approach and only knowledge and wisdom will help in sound decisions. The soul and heart of access and benefit sharing is conservation of bio-diversity and its sustainable use, he said.
A total of 31 BMC representatives and NGO members from Arunachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand will be given training on developing linkages on conservation with livelihood actions at panchayat level, learning from case studies and studying the conservation of bio-diversity in the Western Ghats region.
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